LOS ANGELES — An unforgiving heat wave will smother Southern California over the Labor Day weekend and Death Valley could see temperatures reach 124 degrees.
It's a stark contrast to early August, when Death Valley National Park saw 1.46 inches of rain in a single day of monsoonal downpour. Floodwaters washed away several roadways and forced the park to close.
Death Valley in the Mojave Desert is one of the hottest places in the world, right next to the Sahara Desert in North Africa. On July 10, 1913, temperatures reached 134 degrees at Furnace Creek, according to the National Park Service. That same year, the park recorded its lowest temperature at 15 degrees.
